Private and Public matters

 Today's family conversation

Georgina G.-Mauriño (1962)

WHAT is private and what is public?

When I first met Carmen, I was surprised at how naturally and easily she was able to share private matters with us… There was this first meeting point in music. Nevertheless, I still wondered if our shared love for Vivaldi and Bach was a reason powerful enough for her to tell me about her personal feelings and concerns? Maybe living alone made her lose the sense of the usual social boundaries, or maybe it was just an expression of her self-confidence. Ultimately, every one of us decides what is intimate, private, and what to share or publish. There is no general rule, although there are generational trends. So far there have been ways to manage personal matters in private, even escaping through literature. The media made communication fast and easy, and they opened the door for self-expression, especially for those lonely people who suffered from isolation. But somehow the difference between privacy and publicity got blurry as well as the difference between reality and fiction.

Max G.Flat (1940)

WHY privacy matters?

Because privacy is what makes our experience personal and really free. Life is made of moments that help you grow as a person in so many senses! Your achievements, as well as your defeats, are neither to showcase nor to hide. Of course, there are personal moments meant to be shared and personal issues where you may need some help, and this is the moment of looking for a reliable human company on your side. For me, it's my wife Jo who has always been there when I needed her. And those moments of real and authentic privacy are pure gold in life as they can help you get along the way.

Martha A.Flat (1998)  

HOW to decide what is private and what to publish?

For many young people of my generation, "private" and "public" are terms we have started using on our computers before having a clear reference of their meaning. Talking with my parents and grandparents I realize we have a very different sense of what privacy means. For example, Georgina said something about literature as a personal experience, and I can agree, but I must say I never linked literature to privacy, and this could explain why our generation is not so fond of that literature. Since high school and now in college, I have seen many of my peers ready to share personal information including their most private experiences (love, friendships…) on the web. Actually, sharing real personal life experiences has become the ultimate entertainment. Moreover, after reading the lines above from grandpa Max, I feel that most of my generation is completely unaware of the fact that they are making public what is part of their identity, their very personal private moments, and this is sensitive information which could be used and have consequences. Now I realize how lucky we were at home because my parents introduced us to the Internet explaining that it was a way to really publicize anything, and so I never thought of it as a private space, despite the misleading Facebook offers of choices to make my use of the platform more “private”. Today, I am happy not to be on Social Media. When you bring to the Internet your personal information you are providing data, and those data define you. You become a profile and your choices shrink, being limited and lead by “friendly algorithms”. For the study, research or work this might be convenient, but for your personal life, the more you look like your profile the less you look like yourself, and in order to BE myself I have to remain FREE. Therefore to decide what to publish I believe we should all consider if there is a good reason if it is meaningful and consistent with our own mission in life and if it is relevant and of any value for those receiving that information. Otherwise, it can become a useless expression of vanity. 

This Blog is written by the creators of

MAX in FAMILY 

a Story about our human traces